Nice-guy Contenders Ought To Finish Last

March 07, 1988|By Russell Baker, copyright 1988, New York Times News Service.

NEW YORK — For several weeks now I have been depressed by the thought that we can no longer have mean presidents. This became apparent after the hysteria known as the New Hampshire primary, when many news people said Sen. Robert Dole was afflicted with ``a mean streak`` that would hurt his campaign.

This fatal defect was said to have surfaced in one of those bland election-night interviews when, asked if he had anything to say to George Bush, Dole said he wanted him to ``stop lying about my record.``

A day or so earlier he had disposed of a sidewalk heckler, also in front of a TV camera, by strolling away after growling, ``Get back in your cage.``

I found both episodes highly refreshing after so many years of being smiled at with inhuman intensity by presidents. I assumed the public would flock to the Dole banner after these hints that by electing him we could be freed from displays of presidential ivories.

In fact, I suspected Dole was deliberately cultivating a mean-streak image to win votes from millions of Americans hankering for the good old days when a president could be meaner than a junkyard dog.

Apparently not, according to explainers of the American psyche who immediately pronounced the mean image a big negative for the Dole campaign.

But why? Some of our best presidents have had mean streaks of great width. Andrew Jackson, for instance. Except for the mean way he dealt with John C. Calhoun, the country might have been dismantled while Lincoln was still a lad. For more recent mean presidents, how about John Kennedy, whose philosophy included, ``Don`t get mad; get even``?

Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson are famous for meanness, of course, but Gen. Dwight Eisenhower`s is unjustly ignored. Behind his famous smile was a commanding general`s temperament, which is a euphemism for ``mean streak.``

The onset of the unmean presidents began with Gerald Ford and has continued without interruption, though there are people who insist Jimmy Carter`s unmeanness was not as unmean as he looked.

In any case, we have had a long spell of presidents who come across like television commercials-all smiley, cheery, crunchy goodness and hot-oatmeal warmth, human beings who make you think, ``Soup is good food,`` when you should be thinking, ``With a trillion-dollar debt and a button that goes straight to the atom bomb, why is this guy smiling?``

He is smiling, friend, because he wants us to think he is a nice guy. All his experience and all the advice pouring over him from the most expert experts outrageous campaign funds can buy tell him we want the president to be a nice guy.

No, I don`t know why we want the president to be a nice guy because, personally, I don`t.

If we were realists we would probably look warily at any candidate with a nice-guy streak and insist that he prove himself capable of overcoming nice-guyness before taking him seriously for the presidency.

But of course a presidential campaign is an immensely complicated exercise in deception, including self-deception. The analysts who say the

``mean streak`` hurts Dole are canny enough to know that voters want a president they can like-usually the candidate with the best nice-guy imitation.

Once in a while, alas, as the right-wingers learned about President Reagan, he turns out to be the real thing: a genuine nice guy. What about Dole? Down deep, is he a secret nice guy? I`d phone and ask him, but I`m afraid he might say, ``How`d you like a kick in the kidneys, wise guy?``